Opinion: A flawed Medi-Cal fix

The state Senate's top Democrat, Darrell Steinberg, is making a last-minute push for a bill that would allow some injured people to seek recovery for medical bills that are larger than what their doctors and hospitals actually collected. The goal, Steinberg says, is to generate more money for Medi-Cal, the state's version of Medicaid. Indeed, state and federal laws have made it difficult for Medi-Cal to recover much of what it spends on medical care even when the victims win judgments against the people who injured them. But Steinberg wants to solve that problem the wrong way.